*** Washington Examiner (the Moonie conservative oracle): "At this point, the question is not if Romney is losing, but why he is losing. In the paragraphs below, I explain what currently is a failing Romney campaign."

*** Henry Decker: "For Romney, the most troubling finding of the polls is his damaged reputation. While Obama's favorable/unfavorable spread is +14 in the CNN poll and +12 in the Fox News poll, Romney's is just -1 and +1, respectively. The CNN poll shows that 48 percent view Romney unfavorably, up six points from last month. His unfavorable rating in the Fox News poll is at 45 percent, up five points from last month. This suggests that Obama's string of negative ads attacking Romney are resonating with voters, and should be a major concern for the Romney campaign."

Where are those ads running? The swing states, which explains Obama's 100 point electoral vote lead according to poll composites.

Be an interesting 3 months - for conservatives. Polls will show a small bump for Ryan, a small bump for the convention, and then will settle back down to Obama's lead. Then the panic starts.

Posted by quitter
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Aug 11, 2012 at 9:29 am

Romney is essentially giving up on the election. Ryan will help him bring in extremist campaign donors, but he will alienate more voters. Votes win elections, not money. Romney knows he is going to lose this election and just wants to spend money to slime Obama.

Sharon "Romney/Ryan have the competence and experience to turn the US economy around and make America strong"

No, they don't. And Romney's been getting killed in the polls on his so called "business experience" which is why he is pivoting away from Bain and his failed governorship to be a race about dismantling the social safety net.

Ryan has ZERO experience in building the economy - public or private.

Ryan is loved by the tea party, but will drive away the independents who like Medicare, who like America rebuilding and getting strong.

Ryan is a slasher who will cut jobs and growth to be able to support his plan of tax cuts for billionaires.

Sharon is right about one thing - Romney Ryan will avoid any foreign policy discussion because as a team they have ZERO foreign policy experience - just look at Romneys disastrous overseas trip.

- THE RISK IS OBVIOUS: This race is now fought on territory that has long been favorable to Democrats. Voters trust Democrats more on issues relating to entitlement programs and are inherently suspicious of Republicans on the issue.

- THE REWARDS ARE LESS CLEAR: In picking Ryan, the Romney campaign is gambling that a debate on substance is thing that voters are hungry for. It is also an acknowledgement that a campaign fought on the terrain and issues that it has been for the last few weeks is not one that they can win."

Romney has tacitly abandoned his ability to run on Bain because he was getting trounced on it and his tax returns.

Romney's behind and he made a panic pick based on the polls the last couple weeks, plus the hideous numbers his internal polls showed, just to shore up the base.

Every time a campaign that was behind and made a REACH pick, it hasn't worked, they ended up losing a lot worse than they were behind at the time of the pick:
- MacCain picking Palin
- Gore picking Lieberman
- Dole picking Kemp

This is a desperation pick. In fact, it is Obama's favorite choice, with the possible exception of Palin, all just to support Romney far right base at the expense of the middle.

Romneys choice of Ryan underscores his best line of the campaign so far,

"It's the economy  and we're not stupid!"

Through nominating Ryan, Romney has signaled that his campaign is going to be about the economy, the economy, and, yes, you guessed it, the economy (with health-care thrown in as an aspect of the economy).

It is not going to be about immigration, marriage, the legalization of marijuana, whether candidates cause cancer, who has a dog on his car, or even who was born where.

It's going to be about the one thing America is obsessed with, the one thing that if we don't correct nothing else is possible….
Okay, I won't say it again, but you certainly know.

Romney Ryan End Medicare 2012 will not focus on the economy, because they are on record supporting the Bush Cheney policies that got us into this mess, and have numerous bush Cheney team members working for them.

Obama took the Bush Cheney recession from 800,000 jobs lost per month in January 09 to our current 28 consecutive months of private sector job growth creating 4 million new jobs.

Look at the Bush Cheney job Chart and obama's positive job growth and tell us how Romney Ryan End Medicare 2012 differs from Bush Cheney

Remember, Walker defeated the leftists in WI, especially the public sector unions. WI was a bastion of failed socialist policies, and Walker (and Ryan) told the truth about them...and won, which sent the lefties into a panic.

There is a prarie fire of freedom infecting this country right now. Ryan is a good choice as VP, because he understands this, and is a leader who has promoted it. Independents and Reagan Dems will vote for Romney/Ryan, with the support of Walker.

The desperate charges from the left serve to display their own panic. Extremists on the left cannot support private freedom...agaisnt their religion. They will even push Granny over the cliff to purge their angst.

Watching lefties squirm provides some political humor for me. Let the good times roll!

Swing state composite polls have Obama up by 75-100 votes, nearing McCain landslide territory. head to head polls for the last moth:

*** CNN/Opinion Research Aug 7 Obama +7%

*** FOX News Aug 5 Obama +9%

*** Reuters/Ipsos Aug 2 Obama +7%

*** Pew Research July 26 Obama +10%

*** NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl July 22 Obama +6%

Desperation, thy name is Gary, trying to paint a rosy picture from fantasy colors, not based in reality at all.

Romney was getting slaughtered in all the full polls (excludes the dailies and Rasmussen.) Romney's internal polls told him to throw a hail mary to make the Sharron's and Gary's of the world happy. Guaranteed to drive off middle of the roaders.

Now that Romney stupidly chose the author of the Republican Budget, it lassos the Budget vote around every republican house member, making it super easy to hang both Romney and the GOP house in one ad blitz. Watch GOP house members running from their vote by September. Losing the race to Obama was already almost a sure thing, losing the House with it is....

Priceless!!!

The single best move to give Pelosi a chance at taking back her gavel.

Posted by Gary
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 11, 2012 at 4:48 pm

>Romney was getting slaughtered in all the full polls

So was Walker, accordig to the press and polls. What happened? Walker stood his ground and crushed the left. Ryan supported Walker, which shows his leadership.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the 1980 election, when the press and polls said that Reagon stood no chance. There was even one infamous quote from from a crazy leftist woman columnist in the New York Times, who, expressing her shock at Reagan's election said, "I don't know anyone who voted for him!". Leftist blindness is legendary.

Posted by Gary
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 11, 2012 at 6:50 pm

>Reagan led from May through the election.
Walker was up from January through thebelection.

In the minds of the people, but not in the minds of the media. The polls were spun by the press (tools of the left) to suggest that Reagan and Walker were toast. Then came the election for Reagan and the re-election for Walker.

The Wisconsin voters are leading a new day in America. I know it is shocking to the lefties, but their old comrades are no longer in power. The Walker re-election is a watershed event. This is very good for Romney/Ryan. It is also very good for our country.

You can find some polls that show Carter ahead for part of the time, but the composite polls show Reagan taking the lead in may and not releasing it. The Gallup has Reagan leading mid June to mid august and then neck and neck the rest of the way. Put all the polls into composite and Reagan was ahead since May.

Gary: "when the press and polls said that Reagon stood no chance." WRONG. ***Never*** trust the claims of Gary and Sharon, always assume they are just lies from the far right echo chamber and do the research yourself.

Never trust Gary's claims and falsehoods. He just wants to deflect from how bad Romney and Ryan are.

Sharon,
You claim that the Ryan pick focuses the election on jobs and the current economy. Actually, it doesn't. It now focuses the election on the future course of entitlements. I'm not saying that it's better or worse, but it's flat out wrong for you to assert that it re-enforces Romney's strategy up until now. It's actually a significant pivot.

Posted by Sherrt Anders
a resident of Barron Park
on Aug 13, 2012 at 9:11 am

Look at all the Ryan-will-lose-Florida headlines in the FLA papers this morning. Romney should have picked Rubio.

With obama winning by 7 points in Ohio, Florida clinches the deal for Romney.

Game over. Obama wins.

Stupid pick, just to hold the base for the worst nominee ever.I could cry. And I probably will in November. I hate the beltway elite that control my party. I will join any conservative 3rd party for 2016. Romney stinks. So smarmy.

Posted by ryan freaks out Florida
a resident of Barron Park
on Aug 13, 2012 at 9:39 am

Romney and Ryan stump together until its time to visit Florida and Mitt tells Ryan to get lost - they hate Ryans budget in Florida.

Romney just lost Florida. The polls in Florida will go south on Romney as the Ryan ads hit TV, losing a couple points a month up to the election.

Romney went to Florida and lied about the phony medicare cuts in obamacare. Not one senior lost anything from obamacare. Ryan included that part of obamacare in his budget, so even ryan voted for the same program, along with everyHouse republican!

Posted by Love Clinton
a resident of Nixon School
on Aug 13, 2012 at 11:45 am

Clinton was the best president in decades. Balancedbudgets. 23 million new jobs. No stupid wars. Raised taxes on the top 2 percent. Cut spending in every part. Of federal government. Let's go back to Clinton rates and Clinton job creation. Romney will explode the budget just to cut his own taxes. Dude is a mess. Can't even be honest with his taxes.

Posted by Whew
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 13, 2012 at 12:14 pm

My guess is Romney couldn't get anyone else to run with him. The Governors mentioned as prospective running mates for Romney don't want to be associated with a looser because they have to think of their reputations post-election. Remember Sarah Palin!!! She was the only running mate John McCain could get because everyone knew he was going to lose the election.

The moral of this story is: "Don't get tied to a loser!!!"

Paul Ryan is thinking 2016 not 2012 when he'll be the front runner for the Conservative Republicans - God help us all!!!!

" The leftists are very nervous" WRONG, as usual from Gary and Sharon. It's the far right thats getting hysterical about Romney.

Going into this weekend, Obama was near Obama/McCain landslide territory of +80 to +100 electoral votes in the composite swing state polls, outright winning in Ohio and Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc..., along with numerous head-to-head polls showing everything from a tie to an 8 point margin for Obama.

Romney will get a small Ryan bump, and another from his convention. Obama then gets his convention bump and will widen his lead in October, leading to more hysterics from the Gary Sharon crowd. Notice that Sharon thnsk we should be talking about jobs, but Ryan can't so that because he voted against the American Jobs act which would have created 2 million new jobs by now.

ALWAYS ignore Sharon and Gary unless they can provide PROOF of their silly claims.

Then ask them to comment on the BLS jobs data put into chart form: Web Link

Obama creates 4 million new private sector jobs in the last 28 months after Bush has consecutive months of 800,000 jobs lost. Romney Ryan have promised to implement Bush Cheney policies.

" Obama's claim of creating 4.5 million jobs that he reiterated again on Thursday is simply wrong.

Not only do we have fewer jobs in the U.S. today than when Obama first became president, nothing has been done for the 8 million additional working age people.

By anyone's definition, this is not a "recovery."

Since the recovery started in July 2009, the working age population has grown by 213,000 people on average each month.

Normally about 60 percent of the working age population is working. Thus, it would have been necessary to add about 128,000 jobs each month just to keep the share of the working age population employed from falling.

That means that a minimum of a little over 4.7 million jobs had to be created during the recovery just to keep us treading water.

That growth wouldn't have done anything to make up for the huge job losses that we had suffered up to that point.

In fact, only 2.7 million jobs have been added over that time period

- 2 million jobs short of what we needed just to keep from falling further behind.

Sharon claims that BLS.gov data is "voodoo"; the vary term George Bush used to describe Reagan and the ridiculous Laffer curve. That's funny.

Here's the BLS data that answers Sharons false claim right here: Web Link To use Sharon's selective chart Web Link just look at the massive Bush job losses that bled over to Obama's term before his policies took effect and lead to job growth of 4 million jobs in the last 28 months.

Just remember when reading Sharon, she's the one who thinks Sarah Palin (pointed out above) was supremely qualified to be president. Laughable, isn't it?

Donal Trump loves the Ryan pick - here's what Sharon's favorite millionaire says about Ryan: "Trump spent several minutes plainly questioning the political chops of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and declaring, with characteristic conviction, that the Ryan budget would be an abject disaster for Romney.

"It is catastrophic what he's done," Trump told CNBC. "If they lose, it will be the single biggest reason why the Republicans lost: the Ryan plan."

"I think the worst thing [Romney] can do is strongly embrace that budget if he wants to get elected," he said. "This will be the single worst move in the Republican Party for many years. This is going to be catastrophic."

Posted by Federal money for Ryan
a resident of Midtown
on Aug 13, 2012 at 3:42 pm

Watching the 60 Minutes interview, neither of them answered the questions, they just changed the subject to criticize Obama. Didn't fool anybody.
I wonder what Mr. Sharon will say when it becomes more public that Ryan's prosperous little hometown has benefited from a number of FEDERAL grants. I guess he'll just change the subject.

1. Jobs - Obama's American Jobs Act was voted down by Ryan and the republicans - it would have added 2 million jobs. Please note Ryan/Romney have no jobs plan except tax cuts for millionaires. Obama has added 4 million jobs in the last 28 months

2. The National Debt - Ryan's budget has been scored for THIRTY years by the CBO and it never once balances the budget because, like Mitten's plan, it gives away our tax dollars to millionaire and billionaires and corporations, and increases defense spending

3. The Economy - Ryan and Romney will follow Bush Cheney policies and drive our economy into the ditch. Bush had a negative 8 percent GDP when Obama took over. It has been between 1 and 3 percent since - good progress but needs to be better. Ryans cuts to the economy will trigger a double dip recession.

Source: Mitt Romney (his "I won't cut a trillion" quote)

Romney has defaulted to Ryan. On Saturday he said he was using his plan, by Monday the honchos told him he's using Ryans budget busting, kill Medicare plan.

"Mitt Romney: Well, I have my budget plan as you know that I've put out. And that's the budget plan that we're going to run on."

As Donald Trump said: "It is catastrophic what he's done," Trump told CNBC. "If they lose, it will be the single biggest reason why the Republicans lost: the Ryan plan."

Posted by Perspective
a resident of Greater Miranda
on Aug 13, 2012 at 6:18 pm

All I can do is laugh at the attempt to characterize Ryan as "far right"....after he and Widen ( a "far left" Senator) propose a way to save Medicare from bankruptcy in Dec 2011! The "far left" is truly hilarious.

Either we change Medicare and Social Security so that there is still a "there, there" in 20 years, or we keep rolling off the cliff so nothing is "there" in 20 years.

I choose some fiscal sanity. Even if it is true that it will take 30 years to "balance a budget" as the left is trying to argue and also somehow say this is "bad"...it is a heckuva lot better than the current way of the Democrats, which is no budget for 4 years, and keep borrowing at an exponential rate until we collapse in a few years a la Greece.

Most younger folks know that if we don't turn and turn fast, we are going to keep going "forward" right off the cliff, into a bankrupt Medicare and Social Security system, with absolutely nothing left for anyone under 55. Most folks know that if we have a chance of handing the next generation anything resembling the opportunities we had in the older generation, with any degree of social security and medicare left, we have to limit our government, free our enterprise, and reform our Medicare system.

Posted by Perspective
a resident of Greater Miranda
on Aug 13, 2012 at 6:37 pm

BMAC, you miss the point. Even if it is true that the budget would take 30 years to balance all the way, at least it is moving in the right direction, vs now, where it is falling off the cliff. It is sort of like when we were all yelling about the 500 billion/year deficit the last 4 years of Bush...and Obama said that was wrong, unpatriotic even, to borrow off the backs of our kids, and some of us were saying that the only stop was the Veto pen of a Republican POTUS like Bush finally found, and that Obama would remove all stops and spend wildly..then he went on to triple the deficit. We all agree that the debt and deficit are unsustainable. Any plan to reverse it is better than what we are doing now, which is running right into a Greece Wall.

Perspective: We can balance the budget in a couple years by going back to Clinton tax rates and Clinton spending. Ryan Romney doesn't want to balance a budget anymore than Bush Cheney wanted to keep the Clinton balanced budgets. Ryan Romney want to give huge tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.

As far as you yelling about Bush deficits, show us a link to any of your posts with you "when we were all yelling about the 500 billion/year deficit the last 4 years of Bush"

Sharon: you keep bringing up "class warfare". Is that the latest Fox talking point? Bringing in the Russian revolution? What planet do you live on?

Posted by Perspective
a resident of Greater Miranda
on Aug 14, 2012 at 10:07 am

BMAC: You are really joking, aren't you? Do you have any idea what would happen if we went back to "Clinton spending" levels? Cutting, precipitously, 1.5 trillion dollars from our spending (ifp) memory serves right, we were about 2 trillion in spending, but I have no time to look it up), would mean chaos in our society. Yes, we have to cut spending, trust me I am in absolute agreement!! But unfortunately we are now up to what, 3.7 trillion in spending per year, and "cold turkey" slashing back to 2 trillion ( heck, I would be delighted with "just" spending 2.7 trillion!!) would send us into a spin. It has to be gradually decreased, in concert with policies that encourage private business to grow to help pick up the slack by hiring folks, and to increase tax revenues. Combined with a gradual inflation managed by the Feds, and we can, with pain but not death-spiraling pain, bring our economy back into balance.

Posted by Perspective
a resident of Greater Miranda
on Aug 14, 2012 at 10:13 am

But, BMAC, I would really,really really support us going back to Clinton taxes if we also went back to Clinton spending..ANYTHING to cut our debt!!..but it simply ain't gonna happen.The screaming about "cuts" would drown out any good sense.

It is about whether the winner of 2008 has done anything in the interim.

"And the sad truth", Ferguson concludes, "is that he has not."

Then he twists in the knife.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised "not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth." He promised to "build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together." He promised to "restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost." And he promised to "transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age." Unfortunately the president's scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

PLEASE look at the monthly jobs chart and see how Obama has guided America out of the Bush jobs disaster, without any help form republicans who have blocked every effort to stimulate job growth the same way Bush and Reagan stimulated job growth (though Bush's efforts failed.)

Nor will Sharon comment on Ryan's hypocrisy in supporting Keynesian stimulus while under Bush, but refusing to help Americans while Obama is President; and then Ryan lying about not requesting stimulus money fro his district.

The Ferguson article is being fact checked and decimated by almost all major media outlets, with calls for a Ferguson firing for all his lies and misrepresentations.

Newsweek admitted they did NOT fact check Ferguson - a major black eye.

The Atlantic has a good summary of the lies, and there are lots of them: Web Link

"It would have been worthwhile for Ferguson to explain why Obama doesn't deserve re-election in this real world we actually live in. Instead, we got an exercise in Ferguson's specialty -- counterfactual history."

Coincidentally, that is Sharon's specialty as well -- counterfactual history.

3/ Re jobs
President Obama, and the Myth About 4.5 Million New Jobs---

" Obama's claim of creating 4.5 million jobs that he reiterated again on Thursday is simply wrong.

Not only do we have fewer jobs in the U.S. today than when Obama first became president, nothing has been done for the 8 million additional working age people.

By anyone's definition, this is not a "recovery."

Since the recovery started in July 2009, the working age population has grown by 213,000 people on average each month.

Normally about 60 percent of the working age population is working. Thus, it would have been necessary to add about 128,000 jobs each month just to keep the share of the working age population employed from falling.

That means that a minimum of a little over 4.7 million jobs had to be created during the recovery just to keep us treading water.

That growth wouldn't have done anything to make up for the huge job losses that we had suffered up to that point.

In fact, only 2.7 million jobs have been added over that time period

- 2 million jobs short of what we needed just to keep from falling further behind.

Sharon is just copying and pasting her old lies (note that her web link was just a paste of the words 'Web Link')

With all that noise and bluster, Sharon won't address the FACTS: the month by month JOBS CHART that show Obama crating 4 million jobs in the private sector over the last 27 months.

The difference?

Sharon wants to use the Bush job losses in January 2009 (Bush lost 800,000 jobs that month) and the months after as Obama's numbers, even thought Obama's growth policies obviously took a few months to be implemented.

America cannot afford to return to the Bush/Cheney economic policies in the form of Romney/Ryan.

American women should not be forced to live under the Paul Ryan/Todd Akin's mentality of "personhood": no hormonal birth control, forced to carry their rapist's baby, forced governmant trans-vaginal ultrasounds, etc..

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